


The apple of my eye

by Lixel



Series: Holy Moly, Me oh My [1]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Drinking, Friends to Lovers, Hangover, M/M, Unrequited Love, oblivious idiots, or is it???, who knows who knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lixel/pseuds/Lixel
Summary: Just as skipping class or dog-ears in his books, one-night stands were completely out of character for David Jacobs.However, there just were some mornings that you wake up and realize that you broke character last night.Holy Moly, Me oh My,you're the apple of my eye.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Holy Moly, Me oh My [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191143
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The apple of my eye

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening, or morning, or afternoon, depending on what time it is for you right now!
> 
> Welcome to my new project! I decided to start my first series. Exciting, right?  
> The different parts have been in my head for up to an entire year now, and I guess I just had to figure out one last piece to recognize that these one-shots clearly all belonged together into one project. So, here it is! I truly put my heart and soul into this project, and I hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> As you might have seen already from the title and the summary, this work is heavily impacted by the song "Home" by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. Because it is truly just a great song in general. Seriously, I have never met someone who doesn't like this song. If you don't like this song, we can't be friends. There are a handful of other songs that inspired me for individual parts, but this definitely is a big one! So best give it a listen before reading!  
> Generally, for anyone who's into that kinda stuff, I did create a Spotify playlist for specifically this series, to which I listen when I write and develop ideas, so if you'd like to get into the mood for reading this and the following parts, you can listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0G1Avk8NXa664nrZe28UxO?si=svPjikSBTd2TfZX4ICQL2Q)! "Home" is obviously in it, alongside some songs of the movie soundtrack, the cast album, and a handful of songs that I imagined just... fit the vibe to this project I guess? Feel free to let me know if you feel like there are any other songs that I could add, I love things like this tbh!
> 
> A special thank you goes out to my friend Feli, who has been hooked with this story since I first told them about it, without even having seen the Newsies musical or movie! (Which is like, a _shame_ in itself, but that's another story.)
> 
> Lastly, before I let you finally pass on to the story (I am terrible at keeping things short, that's why I am a writer, honestly), as always a short disclaimer: English is not my first language, and even though I consider myself fluent for the most part by now, I am always grateful to learn new things and improve my language abilities! So if you find any errors or things like that, _please_ point them out to me either in the comments or dm me on Twitter ([@xdrownedinink](https://twitter.com/xdrownedinink)) or literally anything. else. I am serious. If I mess up my university classes because my English is too bad to literally be an English major, I will blame you. /j
> 
> With that, I now wish you all to enjoy this first part of my new series!

Just as skipping class or dog-ears in his books, one-night stands were completely out of character for David Jacobs.  
In fact, in his barely 21 years of living, he has had not more than one single one-night stand, which mostly resulted in too much alcohol and an unendurable heartache. And even then, it at least hadn’t been with a stranger. Which probably didn’t make the situation any better, but at least he didn’t endanger himself by following some random guy home.

He and Darcy, the second person involved, never told anyone. Davey wouldn’t say he regretted it too much, but he surely didn’t feel too proud of himself the next day, after waking up in a bed that wasn’t his own, with barely any memory of the foregone night. Darcy felt the same.  
They spent almost two hours with a semi-awkward conversation about how to handle whatever happened last night between them because truth be told, both of them had been extremely drunk and neither actually had romantic feelings for the other one.  
The real reason (and David was painfully aware of this) was that both of them suffered from a severe case of lovesickness, which they hoped to overcome by sleeping with the next best gay man they came along.  
Darcy had confessed that he had fallen for one of his straight friends. David finally admitted that he fell in love with his best friend Jack Kelly.

It had been an odd situation, to discuss your unsuccessful romantic love life with someone you literally slept with the night before. But at least it made Davey say it out loud. He had utterly fallen for his best friend, and he was terrified of screwing up their friendship because of it. Especially if one considered the circumstances under which Davey got drunk and eventually hooked up with Darcy.  
It happened at Katherine’s birthday party. Katherine was a friend of theirs, she and Darcy had known each other since their early youth, and Davey befriended Katherine through a class they both attended. Katherine then kind of integrated into Davey’s friend group.  
And now, during her birthday party, she and Jack decided to publicly announce that they started dating.  
Davey would never forget how nauseous he got and how that announcement quite literally felt like a kick in the gut. And how his nausea worsened when he realized that he couldn’t just deny it anymore. Deep down, he had known for a while now, he just tried his best to suppress it with everything he had. Denying his feelings any longer couldn’t be healthy, he just had to finally admit it to get over it.

Today, he and Darcy both could laugh about their mishap. And once in a while, Davey got to whine about his feelings for Jack to Darcy, who wasn’t that involved in Davey’s main friend group and hence made a great person to vent to.  
That made Darcy one of three people to know. The second one was Spot Conlon, who was a friend that Davey knew from High School. Spot was dating Race, who was Jack’s adoptive brother, which was how David got introduced to Jack Kelly in the first place. They then grew closer over the art class Davey had to take for credit, despite his inability to even hold a brush properly. Jack, the self-proclaimed amateur artist (though David highly disagreed with the _amateur_ part; He had seen enough of Jackie’s work to say that he truly had a gift), was pretty much the only person David knew that could possibly help him to pass this class.  
To this day, Jack loved to stress (in the most affectionate way) how bad Davey was at drawing, and how he had to go over more than one of Davey’s drawings to save his grade.

Spot had been in Davey’s life for quite some time, yet they never got as close as Davey and Jack did in just a few months. It just wasn’t really on brand for Davey to have these intense kinds of friendships. Except when it came to Jack; to Davey, it was almost impossible to not form a strong bond with Jack Kelly.  
However, Spot and Davey still could read each other like open books. It took Spot approximately two weeks to figure out why David had been all mopey and anti-social since Kath’s birthday party. At first, David was kind of embarrassed about how easily his friend could see through him. If Spot could find it out that easily, Jack would get behind it in no time.  
But then again, Jack seemed pretty busy in his new relationship, and so he didn’t really seem to pay too much attention to any possible changes in Davey’s behavior towards him.

The third person to find out was David’s sister Sarah. People say because they were twins they must share a brain, which sometimes might apply to them, but most of the time they were almost polar opposites. David was an introvert, Sarah was an extrovert. David would never skip one single class, Sarah once skipped three days to go on a spontaneous road trip with Albert, Jojo, and Smalls. Etcetera, etcetera.  
David also always shot a text to people before he came over to visit their dorm or apartment, while Sarah tended just to show up at their doorstep. That’s pretty much what happened a few days after Kath’s party when Sarah knocked on Davey’s dorm room door.  
She didn’t even ask to come in, she just turned the doorknob and let herself fall onto Davey’s bed. Davey barely even looked up from the assignment he was typing on his computer at his desk; this had happened plenty of times before.

“You have a crush on Jack,” Sarah stated after a few moments of silence. It wasn’t even a question. It was just a fact and she announced it as if she read about it in one of the textbooks for her biology class.  
“What? No, I don’t,” Davey immediately shot back and looked over to her. She simply glared at him.  
“Sure you do, otherwise, when they told us they were dating, you wouldn’t have looked at them like they just announced that someone ran over Hedwig.”  
(Hedwig was the cat they had when they were kids, when they both moved out for college she stayed back at their parent’s house.)  
David tried to argue with her, already a random excuse and explanation in mind, when she just kept talking.  
“Davey, it’s okay. I just want to bitch about something, and I guess you’d understand me best in this. I have a crush on Katherine.”

She kept on talking for approximately one hour, which was just another trait of hers. About how unfair she found it, and that she regretted not having made a move earlier.  
Things turned out rather well for her when, after less than two months, Jack and Katherine broke up, deciding to be better off as friends. Not much time after that, Sarah finally made a move, and she and Kath had been dating ever since.

David Jacobs did not have such luck. Jack dated some people here and there, never really anything serious, and Davey just watched from the side as his best friend.

* * *

Just as skipping class or dog-ears in his books, one-night stands were completely out of character for David Jacobs.  
However, there just were some mornings that you wake up and realize that you broke character last night. That had been the morning after Davey woke up with Darcy, and it once more was the case this morning.  
He knew immediately because he usually did not wake up on somebody’s chest, yet today there he was, in a bed that was a bit broader than the one in his dorm room, naked skin pressing against his own. His eyes were heavy and a throbbing headache set in the second he tried to open his eyes for the first time. So they remained closed for another handful of seconds.

What were the straight facts?  
It was a Friday morning, he knew that for sure. Yesterday had been Thursday, and Crutchie had gotten a call in the afternoon, which was confirming his top surgery date in a few months, so he called the whole group together to celebrate on a Thursday night. Davey was one of the few who had been stupid enough to schedule one of their classes on a Friday morning, so nobody really had any objections. Even though Davey’s class wasn’t until 10 am, he probably still should get up soon and investigate where he was to make sure he’d be back on campus on time. That means if he didn’t oversleep massively and his class already started without him.  
(Though he heavily doubted it. Usually, it would be considered late for him if he woke up later than 9 am.)

The last night was everything but clear in his head. A thick fog sat on most of the memories. Davey knew from previous hangovers that most of his memories would come back over the next few hours, but it kind of nagged him that he right now didn’t really have a clue how he ended up in this bed, and, most importantly, with whom.  
As already mentioned, today was just really an out-of-character day.

He did remember that he made out with someone, he just didn’t have a face to the mouth on his own. Well, of course, he made out with somebody, how else would he end up in bed with them?  
He _did not_ remember leaving Jack’s and Crutchie’s shared apartment, but that didn’t really mean anything. He hoped that, where ever he was, it wasn’t too far away from campus.

David had his life together most of the time, he really had. His grades were good, he kept his dorm room clean. He maybe didn’t get enough sleep at night one or five times a week or had one or two cups of coffee too much per day.  
But in this very moment, he seriously wondered how anyone could ever consider him a reliable and responsible adult, now that he woke up on a Friday morning with a throbbing headache in a bed that wasn’t even his own.

He knew there was no way around getting out of bed eventually, no matter how much his head felt like it was about to explode. Another wave of the pulsing headache went through his head when he opened his eyes to the bright light that shone in through the window.

He had to blink a couple of times until he stopped seeing spots and lifted his upper body up, away from whoever’s chest he had been lying on until now. It was almost embarrassing that it took him a couple of seconds to recognize the room he had stayed in, given the fact how often he fell asleep and awoke on this mattress.  
Davey blinked in disbelief and rubbed his eyes to make sure he didn’t hallucinate.

He really just woke up on this out of character Friday morning in Jack Kelly’s bed, bare-ass naked. Which probably implied that–  
At first, he seriously considered just running away as quickly as he could. That was literally his first thought. His fight-or-flight response was always flight. But a rustling blanket announced the person next to him to be awake now as well, probably through the movement on the mattress, or because of whatever because Davey really couldn’t care less about the reason right now.

In disbelief, he slowly turned his head to find Jack next to him, rubbing his face with his eyes still closed.  
Davey felt his mouth go dry over the shock.

Given the fact they had been best friends for almost two years now, David had slept in Jack’s bed multiple times before. The bed itself wasn’t too small, so neither of them really bothered to get the leftover mattress that always leaned against the living room wall in case Race or Spot or another one of the boys spontaneously decided to stay over after a night of chatting over one or two or five beers.  
Though Davey usually refused to sleep in the bed when he knew the sheets hadn’t been washed within the last two weeks. For one, because he knew that Jack tended to sleep around if he wasn’t in a relationship at the time. But also simply because Davey had a mild dust allergy and just didn’t enjoy waking up with a clogged nose first thing in the morning.

Why did he think about this right now though? A possibly clogged nose really wasn’t his biggest problem right now.  
He watched Jack, beautiful Jack Kelly with his hair messed up from the pillow and probably from Davey’s hands last night, blink sleepily a few times before his eyes focused on Davey, meeting his baffled stare.

More than pathetic stammering didn’t seem to leave Davey’s mouth, as he tried to break the silence. Not even Jack said anything, and if Jack had nothing quick-witted to say they were basically doomed.  
David’s next instinct was to cover himself, or rather the part of his body that wasn’t hidden under the blanket anyway. It wasn’t until he actually tugged on the blanket, when he realized that this was indeed not his brightest idea, considering that they both shared the same blanket and if he got more fabric that meant that Jack got less.  
Luckily, because otherwise, Davey might have just gone up in flames spontaneously, Jack got to grab the edge of the blanket quickly enough to prohibit more than his thigh to stick out from under the fabric.

“Jesus Christ Dave, you can also just use your words,” Jack laughed in a raspy morning voice.  
“That’s not-,” Davey tried to justify himself while he felt his face heating up, “I didn’t-,” dear God how did Jack’s morning voice sound this pleasing and Davey’s sounded like he was going through his voice break?  
“What time is it?” he eventually managed to get out, his fingers still clutching the blanket. Only one phone, Jack’s, was to be seen on the nightstand and for some reason, Jack didn’t have any other clocks or alarms anywhere in his room.

Without turning away from Davey, Jack reached for his phone and looked at the screen for a split-second before knitting his eyes back to Davey again.  
“Nine,” he plainly gave back. His eyes scanned David and lingered on a certain spot on his neck for a short moment.

That gave him one hour until his class started, but it would take him at least 30 minutes to get to campus with public transportation. He probably would want to stop by his dorm and get changed real quick and grab his notes for class. In short, he needed to leave within the next couple of minutes.

“I have to get to campus,” he brought out, his mouth still felt dry and words were hard to form and articulate.  
“I told you not to schedule a class on a Friday.”  
“I know you did and I gladly ignored you because I’m not bothered by Friday classes,” Davey bickered, “Normally, I mean.”

Jack’s lip pulled into a smirk again.  
“You’d rather stay here with me, is that what you’re saying?”

Dave consciously made the decision to not reply to that comment, because God Yes how badly he would want to just snuggle up against Jack’s chest again and sleep for another two hours cuddled up against the other man, but he knew that it was simply not meant to be and that Jack was only joking to ease the tension.  
Because that was what Jack was doing, right?

“I gotta get out of bed and get dressed,” David announced and sat up a bit more, letting go of the blanket his fingers had clutched onto until now, “Can you close your eyes while I change?”

“You’re joking, right?” Jack asked with an amused tone, “Dave, there’s not really something to see that I haven’t seen yet.”  
“You can’t just say it like that, Geez!” Davey felt the blush creeping up his cheeks again, even better, he probably looked like a tomato now, given the hotness of his face.  
“Why not?” Jack laughed, “It’s just the truth!”  
“God, Jackson, just look away, please!” Davey pleaded, trying to indicate how serious he was by using Jack’s full given name.  
“Okay, fine,” Jack eventually agreed and squeezed his eyes shut, “Go.”

“No peeking,” David said in a small, high voice as he climbed out of the bed, his eyes scanning the floor to locate his clothes.  
“I would _never_ ,” Jack gasped in an exaggerated offended tone, his hand dramatically placed on his chest.  
Fucking Christ, Davey had to remind himself, this was not the time to drool over Jack’s naked torso.

“Can I open my eyes again?” Jack asked after a handful of seconds. By now, David at least found his underwear somewhere around the foot of the bed, alongside his jeans. Where the fuck was his shirt?  
“You’re so impatient,” he sighed, “Yeah, I’m partially dressed. Where is my shirt?”  
“I think it came off first,” Jack squinted, probably trying to recall his memory (the thought of that only made Davey mildly uncomfortable, thank you for asking), “Check the floor by the door.”

Davey, his face heating up again, looked around to find his nice button-down shirt crinkled in the corner.  
“Got it,” he informed Jack, not daring to turn his gaze to him again.  
“Glad to be a help. You need anything else? A kiss goodbye, maybe?”

David rolled his eyes, still facing away from Jack. Although he really just tried to cover his heartache with annoyance.  
“So, uh,” he started, while picking up the shirt and trying to smooth out some of the creases with his hand, “What do you remember? Because I pretty much blacked out.”

“I’m not blacked out at all,” Jack said innocently as if that didn’t imply that he very much remembered explicitly what happened between the two of them.  
“I’m gonna regret this, but care to fill me in, at least?” David still couldn’t look Jack in the eye, especially now, fumbling with the belt between his fingers.

“It started on the balcony,” Jack started to tell, a confident grin plastered on his face.  
“Why were we on the balcony?”  
“We did Tequila shots altogether and I went outside to smoke, and you just couldn’t be without me too long,” if even possible, Jack’s grin became cockier with every word.

Davey sighed. Really nothing good ever came from him watching Jack smoke.  
“Yeah, great, go on.”  
“Then you, young sir, told me that, and I quote: You’d need me.”  
“That is completely out of context,” Davey protested, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. Parts of the memory slowly started clear up inside his brain, “I told you I needed you to stop smoking at some point because I don’t want to lose you, because-”

He then stopped abruptly. Oh shit.  
Shit shit shit.  
He now remembered pretty clearly what exact words he chose. He had said _because I am in love with you_. He declared his love to Jack, there was no other way to interpret these words.  
And considering Jack’s impression, he knew this just as well as Davey did.

“Because you’re important to me,” Davey finished the sentence, hoping Jack would let it slide.  
Which he did not, because if he did, he wouldn’t be Jack Kelly.

“Really?” Jack laughed, crossing his arms in amusement, “Is that what you said?”  
“Jack, please-” Dave looked away once more.  
“Because one of us must be lying, and I am damn sure it ain’t me because I know what I heard.”  
“Jackie-”  
“I am pretty sure you said that you-”  
“ _I know what I said_ ,” David hissed loudly. He looked up again, to find the smile on Jack’s face dying, “I _know_ I said this, okay? It must have been the vodka or anything, I don’t know. Let’s just talk about this later today, okay?”

He kneeled down to tie his shoes.  
“Sure,” Jack hesitated a moment before he responded to Davey’s sudden outburst, “But I guess there isn’t too much to talk about. It happened, we were both drunk, it was just a one-time thing, right?”

There was a change in his tone. He didn’t sound like he was sincerely amused anymore, this now was clearly his playing-it-cool mode. Dave looked up to meet Jack’s face.  
“Well, I still think we should talk about it. I’ll text you after my class.”

Slowly, Jack nodded, “I think your phone and wallet are still in the kitchen.”  
“I’ll look for them there, thank you,” Dave replied quietly. The entire atmosphere in the room had changed within seconds, and if he was being honest, no matter how annoying Jack had been before, he’d rather have this kind of Jack than the one he changed into after Davey’s harsh words.

“Talk to you later?” Davey reassured himself again, his feet already dragging him towards the door.  
“Dave?”  
“Yeah?” he turned around, now fully facing Jack again. He knew he had to leave if he wanted to make it to class in time, but he just couldn’t. His gut told him to stay for at least another moment.

“Was it just a drunken-mistake sort of thing to you?”  
All of a sudden, Jack didn’t sound like himself anymore. Instead, he sounded bitter and sad.  
“Was it to you?” Davey said faster than he could rethink it.  
“I asked you first.”

If he had the choice, it wouldn’t be, David thought.  
“It doesn’t really matter, doesn’t it?” he dodged.

“Well, it wasn’t to me,” Jack just said after a short silence, “But I guess if it was to you, then-”

He didn’t get much further until he got interrupted by Davey walking over to the bed again to press his lips softly against Jack’s.  
Jack almost desperately pulled him in close, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and holding onto the back of his neck with his other hand. Davey’s mind flooded with memories from the foregone night, how Jack kissed him, smelling like cigarettes and cheap booze. But he pushed them aside because right now at this moment he was kissing Jack Kelly again and this was really everything he was able to comprehend right now.  
It was too goddamn hard to not give in to the urge to push Jack back into the sheets again and continue where they stopped last night, but Davey _really had to leave_ , and no matter how much he ever wished for this to happen, his own goddamn sense of responsibility wouldn’t let him enjoy every part of it.

They parted again, breathing heavily against each other’s faces.  
“So you said my phone and my wallet are on the kitchen counter?” he gasped.  
“That’s what you’re focusing on right now?!” Jack asked out of breath but with the smile back on his face, “Literally, out of all things?”  
“Jackie, I _told_ you, I have _class_ ,” Davey tried to defend himself and placed his hand on top of Jack’s, which was still lingering on his chest, holding onto the button-up shirt for dear life.  
“You’re literally the most boring person on this planet,” Jack leaned in to press another short kiss onto his lips, “I can’t believe you’d rather go to class than make out with me.”  
“I didn’t say I _want_ , I said I _have_ to,” Dave replied, “We’ll talk about this when my class is over, alright?”

Pouting, Jack gave in and nodded eventually.  
“Fine. Go get your A.”

Davey’s heart was still pounding like crazy when he quietly closed the door to Jack’s room behind him. The kisses still lingered on his lips, and he almost jumped when he saw Crutchie sitting in the kitchen with a steaming mug of tea.  
“Hey, Dave,” he greeted him with a little wave, “Looking for your stuff?”  
“Uh, yeah,” Davey nodded and spotted his belongings in a bowl, together with a handful of keys and wallets and other stuff belonging to Crutchie or Jack.  
Jack, who he just kissed. Sober. Yeah, Davey definitely wouldn’t be able to focus at all during this class.

“I just started to clean up, so I put them there,” Crutchie explained, “I would offer you to stay and help cleaning up, but you seem in a rush,”  
“Yeah, my class starts in,” he glanced at his phone, “Shit, 40 minutes. I got to go.”  
“Have fun,” Crutchie called after him, chuckling, while Davey rushed towards the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, make sure to subscribe to the series to get updated when I upload the next one shot!  
> And, I of course always appreciate a nice comment to keep me motivated!  
> Lots of love!  
> ~ Lix


End file.
